RTE television in the new year will screen ‘The School’, a new three-part documentary series following the students and teachers of St Peter’s College, Dunboyne, over one academic year. Never before has an Irish school given such unlimited access to film-makers, allowing camera crews to document every aspect of school life.
Principal Eamon Gaffney was initially reluctant to open the doors of the school he built up from nothing 15 years ago. But he felt his staff had nothing to hide. Quite the opposite, in fact; here was a great school, producing great students, ready to make a contribution to Irish society.
A number of students reappear across the series, giving viewers the opportunity to follow the ups and downs of their school year. Band members like Adam and Donal, who just seem hell-bent on stretching every rule in the book for their last year of school life. Or fifth year Conor, whose months of rehearsals are jeopardised by illness on the eve of the school musical, or the pressure felt by sixth year students, including Claire and Niamh, who are about to confront one life-changing exam.
‘The School’ begins on RTE One on Monday 4th January at 9.30pm.
Catch Episode one again if you missed it:
http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1063518
Source: http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/the_school.html
There is the caveat that they’ll have acted differently knowing cameras were present…
Yeah definitely, none-the-less I’m looking forward to it! Had thought of this before but naturally hadn’t the resources nor the drive.
Hey whats the craic.
I’m a student in the school and take your point about people acting differnt when camera were on but they were in the school for over a year so camera’s became a regular occurance in classroom and corridor situations so it’s a pretty true picture of the students and teachers.
35 minutes of teachers giving out to students about their uniform- it was hardly that enlightening.
There could have been better production in terms of allowing the students to have the camera. More time should have been spent with them so as to get a realistic sense of what their view was of school, school life and education.